'Prison Break' Actor Goes from Jail to Screenwritng

This story, if it pans out the way it's supposed to, is so nice that I might not even make fun of it very much. You may recall that Lane Garrison, best known for appearing in TV's Prison Break, was driving drunk in December 2006 when he hit a tree, killing a 17-year-old male passenger and injuring two 15-year-old female ones. He pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and was sentenced to 40 months in prison, then escaped when his heavily tattooed brother was sent to the same prison and busted him out. No, I kid. He was released this past April for good behavior.

Now The Hollywood Reporter has word of Garrison's next step: He's writing a screenplay, based on real events, about a football team from a Texas school for teenagers convicted of violent crimes. Think The Longest Yard, but with kids, and inspiring, rather than whatever The Longest Yard was supposed to be. The script will focus on what happened in 2008, when the bad-kids team played against a Christian school and found an unexpected level of compassion and sportsmanship.

Garrison tells THR he was "moved to tears" when he heard the story. "I knew who those kids were because I was one of them. I knew what it was to be locked away and feel hopelessness and feel like, 'Will I ever have another redeeming quality; will I have a second chance?'" Garrison, now in rehab, may have tapped into the perfect Hollywood fable: a man seeking redemption by writing a screenplay about people seeking redemption. He already has a producer on board, Dallas-based sports documentarian and motivational speaker Steve Riach. There are still some details to be worked out -- like, for instance, whether Garrison can actually write -- but it has potential to be an uplifting sports drama along the lines of The Blind Side, which everyone wants to duplicate now.